Is 'Diaries' bad enough to watch?

Monday

Jan 14, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Is the new series "The Carrie Diaries" (8 p.m. on The CW, TV-14) awfully fascinating or fascinatingly awful? "Diaries" covers the teen years of Carrie Bradshaw, a character whose explicit newspaper column about her sexual conquests was previously featured on the soft-porny shopaholic HBO comedy "Sex and the City." Turning the story of this sexibitionist into a series for impressionable tweens ("Lil' Carrie"!) is almost a sick joke, the kind of wicked parody that might have filled the pages of "National Lampoon" or "Spy" magazine back when their savage brand of satire still existed — or mattered.

Is the new series "The Carrie Diaries" (8 p.m. on The CW, TV-14) awfully fascinating or fascinatingly awful? "Diaries" covers the teen years of Carrie Bradshaw, a character whose explicit newspaper column about her sexual conquests was previously featured on the soft-porny shopaholic HBO comedy "Sex and the City." Turning the story of this sexibitionist into a series for impressionable tweens ("Lil' Carrie"!) is almost a sick joke, the kind of wicked parody that might have filled the pages of "National Lampoon" or "Spy" magazine back when their savage brand of satire still existed — or mattered.

AnnaSophia Robb plays 16-year-old Carrie Bradshaw, a Connecticut prep school student still grieving the loss of her mother. The trauma has all but ruined her relationship with her rebellious little sister, Dorrit (Stefania Owen), and has left her solid commuter dad, Tom (Matt Letscher), shell-shocked.

Set in 1984, "Diaries" makes the most of an early MTV soundtrack and fashion statements straight out of a John Hughes comedy. Like "City," this show is driven, if not drowned, by Carrie's insipid voice-overs. But at least this Carrie has her youth to explain the trite nature of her observations. Sarah Jessica Parker's character had only "City" creator Darren Star's scripts to blame.

"Diaries" careens from "Sixteen Candles" to "Bright Lights, Big City" when Carrie's dad arranges for her to intern with a Wall Street law firm once a week. This allows her to run into a fabulous editor for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, who swoops the precocious teen into her stylish entourage. Suddenly the melodramas of high school corridors seem petty, and Carrie forgets about chasing boys to settle down with the real "Man" in her life, a guy named "Manhattan." (And, yes, that dreadful line is lifted from Carrie's voice-over!)

Because "Diaries" is a CW show, the dirty, rundown, dangerous and pre-gentrified Manhattan is sanitized for the teen audience. The only mention of sex and drugs takes place in Connecticut — in Dorrit's bedroom. Will Lil' Carrie confront subjects like cocaine and AIDS, two scourges that very much defined downtown Manhattan at this time? We'll just have to see.

Much like a two-headed dog, "Diaries" is a ghastly abomination that has to be seen to be believed. Is it dreadful enough to become an instant cult classic? Or fade away like Lindsay Lohan's "Liz and Dick"?

— The new Canadian import "Continuum" (8 on Syfy, TV-14) stars Rachel Nichols as Kiera Cameron, a police officer from 2077 who lands in 2012 to pursue eight deadly terrorists who used a time-travel device to escape justice.

The hyper-violent bad guys claim to be fighting for democracy and representative government, while Kiera works for a corporate dictatorship. And, while stranded in the past, she encounters a young hacker who will become the face of cyber-despotism. "Continuum" is a thought-provoking sci-fi shoot-'em-up worth sampling.